Short notebook post this morning. This is about half as long as the last Media Nuggets I wrote, but you might find a few of these interesting:

 

1) I’m hearing that NBC Sports Philadelphia is close to making a new hire, I believe as the second part of Taryn Hatcher’s move off of the Flyers broadcasts. They like Ashlynn Sullivan and will probably offer her the job, if they haven’t already. I’m not totally sure what the actual gig entails, but they did these interviews more than a month ago, and so the addition should be coming soon… I think.

2) Jon Marks is working without a contract at 94 WIP. He mentioned this briefly on the air two weeks ago, and confirmed when I reached out to him, though he didn’t want to say much else.

What’s curious to me is the larger approach here from WIP, because they already have to replace the midday show, which is moving to mornings entirely. If Jon ends up leaving WIP, that leaves a gap in the afternoon show as well, so there may be some extra fluidity to the situation in the wake of Angelo’s replacement finally being announced.

Keep in mind, most radio shows typically have host A, who drives the conversation, and host B, who acts almost like a color analyst would on television. Jon is host A, and Ike Reese is host B, which is the role typically carved out for former Eagles that end up at WIP. With DeCamara and Ritchie going to the mornings, they already need a new host A and host B for middays, and then perhaps a host A for afternoon assuming Ike doesn’t get reassigned.

3) 94 WIP is winning the ratings battle comfortably right now. The gap is one of the largest we’ve seen in recent years. It’s certainly true that you can parse the numbers in different ways and find victories with certain demographics, but men age 25 to 54 continues to be the most important advertiser demo in radio, and WIP wins comfortably there. Like I always say, it’s hard to paint a complete ratings picture because you would need to include YouTube simulcasts and then get the numbers that The Best Show Ever? does on NBC Sports Philadelphia, but as far as Nielsen is concerned, WIP is on top by a large margin across all dayparts.

4) I’ve heard there’s an intriguing character hanging around the Eagles press box, perhaps doing more than just visiting. I’ll look into this.

5) Jeff Blumenthal at the Philadelphia Business Journal reported that CBS 3 is bringing in a new chief meteorologist and moving Kate Bilo to days:

CBS3’s Eyewitness News is shaking up its weather team, moving chief meteorologist Kate Bilo from nights to daytime and replacing her with newcomer Bill Kelly.

Beginning January 9, Kelly will supplant Bilo as chief meteorologist, working the 5 p.m., 6 p.m. and 11 p.m newscasts on CBS3, and the 10 p.m. newscast on the CW Philly (WPSG-TV) and the CBS News Philadelphia streaming channel.

Kelly was most recently the chief meteorologist for WJLA-TV, the Sinclair Broadcast Group-owned ABC affiliate in Washington, D.C., since 2017.

I don’t necessarily have a thought here about the move itself, but I used to work with Kate back in the day and reached out to her and she’s excited to work these hours.

People probably don’t realize how awful these main anchor/chief meteorologist schedules can be. The most important newscasts take place in the evening and at night, so if you’re someone like Kate, or Jim Gardner, or Jim Rosenfield, you come in around 230 p.m. and then you get done at 1130 p.m. and have to drive home, so you’re back at your front door by midnight at the earliest. Then you wake up with your kids at what, 630 or 7 in the morning? It’s second shift. Second shift sucks! You don’t get to have dinner with your family, you miss your kid’s baseball game and dance recital, and if your favorite band is playing at the Trocadero, you’re probably not going, especially during a sweeps (ratings) period where main talent can’t take off anyway. Television hours are tough and the industry is comparable to being a dog. You age in dog years. 7 years in television feels like 49 years.

edit – looks like Kate addressed this on IG:

 

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